by PJ Vye
He didn’t give them the satisfaction of demanding answers. Instead, he stood with his feet slightly apart, his arms crossed and waited for them to explain. There were no chairs, so he didn’t expect the meeting to take long.
They formed a casual semicircle, Jim one end and Mataio alone at the other. Jim opened the conversation. “Thanks for coming, Mat.”
Mataio nodded and waited some more.
“We represent,” Jim waved his arm randomly towards the men beside him, “a number of other clients. We’ve come to make you an offer on their behalf.”
A random idea occurred to Mataio that these men might be here to poach him to a job in another hospital. He’d heard some interesting and extreme measures workplaces went to, to acquire a potential candidate. Ironic, considering the chaos that was the rest of his life.
The idea was short lived though, because $800 an hour lawyers wouldn’t request a meeting in this out of the way, backyard office setup in the suburbs. They’d dazzle him with high rise hotels and expensive restaurants with waiters to take your drink order.
No. This deal had to be about something secretive. Mataio tried not to hold his breath while he waited for them to explain further.
Jim seemed unperturbed by Mataio’s silence and continued on. “We represent a range of clients who have formed an…informal alliance. Our job is to study and research the global conditions of our client’s industry and address any…threats that might undermine its current or future success.”
Mataio had his back to the door but could see Mark and the Buzz Cut’s move past the interior window and stand with their back to the group. Mataio sensed danger but made a conscious effort to keep his face calm, despite his pounding heart.
The men looked at him like they expected some recognition to Jim’s revelation. He gave them none. He still had no idea what they wanted.
The third suit along with a silver tie pin and thick eyebrows shifted his weight and after an agitated moment blurted, “You’re the threat, you idiot. Jesus.” To the suit beside him he asked, “Are we sure we’ve got the right guy?”
The men all started speaking at once throwing the occasional condescending glance at Mataio and Jim raised a hand for silence. “Please, gentleman.”
They settled quickly and waited expectantly. Mataio searched his brain for ideas but at this point it could be about anything.
They took his silence as defiance.
“I can see you’re a man of great strength, Mataio. We’re not here to take advantage or force you into anything you’re not comfortable with. We’re here to negotiate. And we believe we can come up with a solution that suits both you, your family and our client.”
“Make your offer,” said Mataio.
Jim laughed without humour. “Let’s take a step back, can we? We’ll need some assurances first.”
“Look, I don’t have a lot of time. Tell me what you want.”
“How many people know about it?”
Mataio rubbed the back of his neck. “About what? Be specific.”
Jim sneered, like the game had just gotten unpleasant. Maybe he thought Mataio was being particularly evasive. The circle of suits yelled a number of derogatory comments, many of them racist.
Mataio turned towards the door but Mark shook his head silently from the other side of the glass with the Buzz Cuts standing shoulder to shoulder. The line between prisoner and guest just got blurry.
“I need a glass of water,” said Mataio.
“Gentlemen. Let’s give Dr Brinn some time to refresh, and we’ll meet back here again later.”
A few of the suits groaned their displeasure.
Jim checked his phone and said, “I’ll send word the usual way.”
Mataio started to argue but no-one listened. The men filed out of the room, past the window and down the passage he’d entered moments earlier. When the last of them had gone, Mark entered, blocking Mataio’s exit.
Jim spoke loud enough for both men to hear. “Dr Brinn needs some water, Mark. And some thinking time. Can you make sure he gets both please?”
Mark nodded like he understood completely and Jim, satisfied, left the room.
“I’m not sure what this is all about,” said Mataio, “But I’ve got work to do, and I don’t see any reason to come back for the next meeting. This has been a complete waste of my time.” He took a step towards the exit, hopeful his bluff worked. “I’ll make my own way home.”
One look at Mark’s reaction and Mataio knew he was in trouble.
As they led him towards the back of the building, security each side and behind, he considered how things would turn out for Sunny and his family if he died today.
At least it would all be over, and they’d be safe.
Forty-Two
TULULA
Tulula turned off the vacuum cleaner and listened harder. The sound of footsteps was unmistakable.
Someone was in the house.
She set the vacuum handle silently onto the floor and tried to remember where she’d put her phone. Each rhythmic thud sounded muffled and low, like the perpetrator wore socks over their shoes.
Frozen still, she waited for the sound to stop. Once it reached the end of the passageway, it seemed to head back towards the front door. Then again down the passageway.
She felt her pulse beat in her ears as she searched for a weapon. With La’ei’s belongings packed away, there was nothing obvious she could use to defend herself with. She chose an old misshapen wire coat hanger and angled it to a point, then crept to the door.
When the sound moved further down the passage, she snuck her head out, the hanger near her face, ready to attack.
What she saw made her heart bleed and soar at the same time.
Shuffling along, his ankles so heavy and wide they spread almost the length of his feet, was her only son, sweating and panting from the effort. Determination hung on every crevice of his face with each step. He ignored her as he passed, and she assumed he wasn’t in the mood to accept comments.
Without a word, she returned to the vacuuming in La’ei’s room. When she’d finished, she turned off the machine and listened again. He’d stopped walking the passage. She panicked suddenly at the thought he’d gone outside. He’s gone. They’ve all gone. You’re alone now. A thousand terrors twisted at her heart until she heard his voice call her from the kitchen.
“Tina (mum),” shouted Junior. It sounded urgent.
She dropped the handle and ran to the passage.
Junior’s head appeared around the corner. “Detective Ronson’s here. I let him in. Do you know where Mataio is?”
“Oh.”
She couldn’t remember the last time Junior had interacted with another person, let alone answer the door. She used her apron to wipe the panic sweat off her neck and brow, and then hurried in to greet the detective.
Junior knocked a chair over as he tried to squeeze past. Tulula lifted it silently and pushed it under the table.
“Thank you, Junior,” she called after him. She couldn’t remember the last time she thanked him, either.
“Good morning, Tulula,” said the detective.
“We don’t know where he is,” she said. “Do you want coffee?” She always asked and his answer was always the same.
“No thanks, Mrs Euta,” he said, saying her name the way all Australians did—like it had a Y at the start. “How long has he been gone?”
“This time? I stopped taking notice. He comes and goes and doesn’t tell me anything.”
“When was the last time you heard from him? Today, yesterday, last week?”
Tulula didn’t like the connotation in his voice. “Why? That boy has never cared about anyone but himself. He was supposed to take—”
Tulula stopped herself from saying he’d left Bernadette’s serum on the kitchen table and not returned for days. He’d just expected her to deal with it.
“Take what?” Ronson seemed very interested in what she wasn’t saying.
&nb
sp; Tulula rallied. “What happened with the search at the reserve? You go looking for a body and when you don’t find anything, you don’t tell? Is that good police service?”
“I can tell you we didn’t find any new leads.”
“So, you did find something?”
Ronson gave her a defeated look. “We found nothing.”
“Why do you need to find Mataio?”
In the twenty years Tulula had known him, Ronson had never raised his voice. Today, his frustration didn’t seem far from the surface. “When did you see him last?”
Tulula had to think hard. “Monday. Or Sunday maybe.”
“You say it’s not unusual for him to disappear? Where does he stay?”
“He has a place somewhere near Ringwood.”
“We’ve been there. The place has been cleared out. In a hurry by the looks of it. Lots of broken glass.I don’t think he’ll get his bond back.”
Tulula had no opinion on how he behaved outside her realm. “I don’t know what else to tell you.” She was finished with the conversation.
“What do you normally do if you need to contact him?”
“We don’t. That’s the joy of being related to Mataio.” Her sarcasm felt crueler when she said it out loud, but she’d known Ronson a long time and he knew her relationship with her nephew was complicated.
“Mrs Euta, when he comes home, I need you to call me.”
“Why? What do you need to say to him that you can’t say to me? I want to know what this is about. Do you have any information about La’ei or not?”
Ronson rested his arms on the table and tapped his fingers. “We’ve always thought, you and I, Mataio knew something he wasn’t saying. Am I correct?”
Tulula could barely nod, desperate for him to tell her something new. She sensed it was coming.
“If Mataio has been involved somehow in La’ei’s disappearance, I think things may have escalated recently, for some reason. I don’t know why or what it means, but I’m a bit concerned for his safety and I’d like to get to the bottom of it.”
The relief consumed her. All this time she believed Mataio was involved and the detective wouldn’t acknowledge it. This meant progress. Answers to La’ei’s whereabouts were just a prayer away. She felt like dancing.
She took Ronson’s business card, even though she had several on the fridge already, and said, “I’ll call you when he gets back.”
“Or if you hear where he is.”
“Or if I hear where he is.”
“Good. Thanks.”
“And you’ll keep me informed of any developments.”
“Of course. Always.” The detective stood and made his way out. “Oh, and it’s great to see Junior up and about. He’s better then?”
Tulula agreed, her mind still on Mataio and what he knew.
“What did he have again?” Ronson asked. “I’m not sure I ever knew?”
“I fed him so much he couldn’t get out of bed.”
“That’s gotta be rough.”
Tulula absently held open the front door, but Ronson wasn’t ready to leave.
“So how did he turn it around? Lose the weight?” Ronson smiled and patted his rounded stomach as he added, “I’m asking for a friend.”
“Mataio invented this serum for weight loss,” she answered, her mind still completely focused on how she’d word her prayers tonight.
“He invented what?”
Ronson’s tone bought Tulula’s mind back to the present. “What? Sorry. I said he did Weight Watchers. Online.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Tulula clicked her tongue as she shut the door on him.
Oh mimiti.
Forty-Three
MATAIO
2 days to go
Mataio awoke in the king sized bed and pressed the remote to open the curtains spread over the ceiling to floor windows. The view of Melbourne was spectacular from the penthouse suite level and he’d spent most of the past five days staring out over it, the people below like ants, hurrying about their lives, filled with purpose and sense of belonging he’d never felt.
A trolley of breakfast foods sat by the door, the smell of bacon the reason he woke.
There were always two guards outside, and they rotated a third. Jeff, Scott and Brodie—he’d asked them their names in an attempt to get friendly, find out more information, but they’d stayed silent every time they entered to check up on him or ferry in the food trolley. Mark dropped in a couple of times a day, but he also wouldn’t commit to any conversation about why he was being held here, or how long he expected it would be.
The room hadn’t been serviced since he’d arrived. He’d been expected to make his own bed and clean his own toilet—an absolute atrocity considering he was being accommodated in $5,000-a-night suite in the Crown Promenade. This kind of luxury didn’t align well with The Rules however, considering he was being kept against his will, he figured it was okay.
He’d spent the first night trying to work out how to escape. Windows weren’t an option—they were on the twenty-third floor. Getting past the guards proved impossible and there was only one way in and one way out. He even thought about faking an emergency—some kind of epileptic fit or an anaphylactic reaction so they’d have to call an ambulance. Mataio was a lot of things. A liar, yes. A fraud, yes. An actor, not so much. They’d most likely see right through his performance and laugh.
He lifted the lid on the trolley. His fourth breakfast looked pretty much the same as his first, a selection of fine meats and cheese, eggs, crepes, pastries, coffee, tea, juice, cereal. Enough food for four people, maybe more. Maybe he could bribe the guards with it? He poured a black coffee and scraped the egg from a piece of toast and sat on the floor to eat, gazing out the long window.
He wondered if aunt and Junior had thought it odd, he’d gone out and not come home. Had they bothered to try and find him? Probably not. It was just like him to disappear for days.
No-one knew where he was, and no-one really cared all that much. Sunny would be in the UK by now. Tulula had enough serum for several months and Junior was busy with his recovery. What did it matter where he was?
He wished he could call them, but Mark had taken his phone when they arrived. Mark hadn’t believed him at first when he couldn’t give him a password because there wasn’t one, or that there were only three contact numbers, no photos and less than a dozen messages on the entire phone. Mark accused him of deleting everything and it had taken Mataio some work to convince him otherwise.
Mataio bit into his soggy toast as someone knocked on the door. Mark entered immediately without waiting for an invitation. He carried two brown Tommy Hilfiger bags that he tossed on the bed and said, “Good morning, Mat. Get dressed. Times up. They’re ready for you.”
“Who is?” Mataio asked. This would all be so much easier on his attitude if he knew who he was dealing with.
“I’ll be back in five minutes. Be ready,” said Mark, already back out the door.
Dressed in capri pants and a blue t-shirt, Mat let himself be led through the hotel and into a waiting car, Mark in front and two security beside him. He didn’t bother asking any more questions and all four men, including the driver, rode in silence.
They entered the old suburban shop the way they’d exited—through a back alley and a warped wooden door.
The same suits stood in the same circle—this time much less friendly. No-one offered their name.
Jim held out a hand and in a gesture of goodwill, Mataio shook it, despite wanting to rip his arm off.
“I take it your accommodation was suitable?” Jim asked.
“Except the free will part, yes.”
“Good,” Jim continued as if he thought free will was overrated. “We’ve had some time to get things in order.”
“And we’re ready to negotiate,” said the suit with the thick eyebrows.
“First things first,” said Jim to settle the group. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves like
we did last time.”
Mataio certainly didn’t want to end up in the penthouse for another week. “Agreed.”
“Excellent,” said Jim, taking a step forward.
“Who do you represent?” Mataio needed to know.
Jim looked confused. “We covered that a week ago.”
“I’m not sure we did. Not entirely.”
“We represent a range of clients…an alliance, if you will—”
“Yes, but be specific,” Mataio interrupted the man and then regretted it.
One man frowned, his thick eyebrows sticking together profusely. A few of the other suits sniggered their disapproval.
“If you just let me explain,” said Jim, settling the group again. “The easiest way to describe us is that we represent the diet industry, globally.”
Finally. He tried not to let the relief show on his face. This, he could deal with. To buy some thinking time, he asked, “And what does the global diet industry want with me?”
“We’re talking about a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide. There’s a lot of rich and powerful people who’d like to see it protected at all costs. A lot of money’s invested into following up any whispers or rumours that spring up from time to time.”
“You think I’ve discovered something?”
“We have evidence.”
“From who? It’s not proven.”
“We know it works.”
“How do you know?”
Jim sighed loudly. “We’ve spent a considerable amount of time in your lab. We’ve read your notes. Sampled your compound. It’s the one. It works.”
Mataio sensed he was missing something. They were too confident. The whole thing seemed too slick for a one-off discovery of a drug that may work but hadn’t been properly formulated or proven. “You can’t know that yet.”
“We’ve packed it up. Everything you owned in that building has been destroyed.”
He felt his nostrils flare and he made a conscious effort to not give any oxygen to the fire that burned in his belly. Losing control served no purpose. He took an even breath and focused on it, like the million times he’d done before. “You might have the compound and the data, but I have all the research and process in my head. What you found is no good to you without me.”
